Can ‘Smart Window’ Revive Interest in Firefox?

Jack Wallen put Firefox’s new AI feature through its paces to see whether opt-in intelligence can win back users from other browsers.

The FOSS Force Linux App of the Week — Smart Window

I’ve used Firefox for decades on Linux, partly because it’s has been the default browser on most Linux distros for as far back as I can remember (after a brief period with Netscape Navigator in the late 90s).

For the longest time, Firefox was the best option for Linux. But then, things started to take a turn for the unpopular. Mozilla made some questionable changes in the browser, and things started to get a bit bloated. Then there were some odd choices made by the Mozilla organization that had other users wondering if it was time to jump ship.

After a while, the Firefox market share tanked and, according to Statcounter, Firefox now hovers around the 2.33% market share.

Oy vey.

That does not portend a solid future.

In a desperate attempt to right the ship, Mozilla decided to hop on board the trend train and inject a bit of AI into Firefox, in the form of what they call “Smart Window.”

Clever? Maybe. But will it revive interest in the browser?

I signed up for the beta version of Firefox some time ago to get my hands on the new Smart Window feature to see how well it worked, and here’s my verdict. As a beta member, all I had to do was connect the browser to my Firefox account, and that added the Smart Window feature to the browser. I tested this with three different versions of Firefox: 149, 150, and Nightly. All three versions worked fine.

One thing I noticed was that the beta program has vanished, which makes me believe anyone can add Smart Window to their Firefox instance, so long as they connect it to their Firefox account. It’s a bit confusing, but as long as you’re signed in, your version of Firefox should work just fine.

A Preamble

First, I feel it necessary to say that I’m not the biggest fan of AI. When I do use AI, I tend to prefer locally installed options (such as Ollama). There are two reasons for this:

• Privacy: when using cloud-based AI, there’s no knowing if your chats are being used by a third party.
• Environment: cloud-based AI uses a ton of energy.

With that said, I was shocked to find out that Firefox does, in fact, use locally installed AI. With Smart Window, you get four different options:

• gemini-flash-lite
• Qwen3-23SB-A22B
• gpt-oss-120B
• Custom (use your own)

With the custom option, you can use an LLM installed directly on the machine itself, or you could even use an LLM that you have installed on a machine within your LAN.

Not many other web browsers allow for such a configuration, and I’m all about that.

What Is Smart Window

To answer this question, I turned to Smart Window itself and queried: What is Firefox Smart Window?

Here’s the answer: “Firefox Smart Window is an AI-powered browsing feature built into Firefox that helps you interact with and get more value from your web content.”

From that description it seems Smart Window is just like any other AI feature built into a browser. So, what makes it stand out (if anything)? The Smart Window feature set includes:

• Ask questions about the current webpage or even your browsing history.
• Summarize articles, extract key points, and/or simplify complex content.
• Compare information across open tabs.
• Refine queries based on what you’re viewing.
• Access AI-powered insights from the browser without having to switch tools.

Sounds like the usual list of features for an AI-infused web browser. So, what makes Smart Window different?

The first thing that stands out is the ability to use locally installed AI. One of the first things I did was try to configure Firefox to use a locally-installed instance of AI (Ollama). To do that, I opened Settings > AI Controls > Smart Window, selected Custom, and then entered the necessary information to use my local instance.

Of course, before you get to that, you have to enable Smart Window. To enable the feature, open firefox and go to about:config. In the configuration window, search for browser.smartwindow.enabled, and then set it to true. Restart the browser and you should be good to go.

Once that was taken care of, I restarted the browser and then went to Settings > AI controls. From there, I clicked “Get started,” and was then greeted by the Firefox login window. Yes, you have to have a Firefox account for Smart Window to work.

After logging into my Firefox account, I was then prompted for the initial setup.

Now, we’re ready to go.

Back to locally-installed AI.

Unfortunately, setting up local AI failed to work. No matter the endpoint I used, Firefox Smart Window would not connect to Ollama. That’s fine, given that the other three options still use a locally installed instance. The only downfall is that you’re limited to the three different models offered by Smart Window. It would be nice if Firefox could auto-detect if Ollama is already installed and configure it for usage.

If you’re gonna dream, dream big, right?

OK, so let’s stick with the default. I opted to go with Flexible because I often use Qwen with Ollama. To access Smart Window, click the icon that looks conspicuously like the Gemini icon near the top right of the window, which opens the Smart Window tab.

At this point, it’s just a matter of using Smart Window like your standard AI tool. The big question is, will it save Firefox? In my opinion, the answer is no. However, I do know that Mozilla is about to do a full refresh on the Firefox UI to make it more modern, so it may be possible that the combination of Smart Window and the refresh could give it a bump in market share.

But is it too little, too late?

I honestly hope not. I really like Firefox and have for some time. It’s a solid, open source browser that the Linux community has been using for a very long time. If it takes an injection of AI and a better aesthetic to save it, then bravo to Mozilla for making it happen.